US ‘manipulated UN to provoke Iraq confrontation’

A former United Nations weapons inspector has accused the United States in a new documentary of manipulating the UN to provoke a confrontation with Saddam Hussein as a pretext for US air strikes on Iraq.

Scott Ritter, a former US Marine intelligence officer, says in the 90-minute documentary that he did not provoke the confrontation the Americans wanted in March 1998, but fellow inspector Roger Hill - an Australian - did have a confrontation in December of that year.